


Shameless

by princekaiju



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drabble, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princekaiju/pseuds/princekaiju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“As much as they indulge my academic needs for their own gain, my complaints have, as of late, fallen on increasingly deaf ears. Unless it’s solving a problem of their own, they take my words with less than a grain of salt.”<br/>“Well,” Newt chimed, his voice breaking slightly in the middle of the word. “You just gotta make your intentions a little more...prominent. Grand.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shameless

Hermann’s cane slammed into his desk with considerable force, making neatly stacked books and papers shiver on their shelves. Newt might have jumped had it been earlier in the year, but he’d gotten used to all sorts of loud sounds - commonly in the form of shouting, commonly directed at him. He didn’t look up from his desk, instead calmly reaching over to pause his music.

“Dösbaddel*…”

Newt waited for a few moments, listening to muttered curses and angry shuffling before finally leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head.

“Good lecture?”

More angered mumbling. Newt slid his headphones off, letting them hang around his neck as he turned to look at his roommate. Hermann gave him a pointed glare, seating himself at his desk.

“I do not want to talk about it.”

“Oh, yeah, you do,” Newt hummed, leaning in conspiratorily. “It’s hilarious when you get this angry, and I wanna know how they managed it. Er, terrible. It’s terrible when you’re angry.”

“Those _idiots_ at the lab. Do they even know what they’re working with?!”

“I’m gonna guess no.”

“They most _certainly_ do not!”

Hermann was standing again, pacing the room with his lopsided gait, his cheeks flush with indignation.

“They had so many things wrong in the theorem - a rather simple-minded one at that, I might add - and when I corrected them on their very _obvious_ and very _immature_ mistake, they had the gall to not only ignore my correction but state something completely unrelated to the problem at hand!”

He spun on his good heel, turning back to stomp across the room.

“Not only that, but the other simpletons present had to make an annoying ‘ooh’ sound - something I believe you’d call a reaction to being...’burned’...when no such thing had occurred, and laugh at the presenter’s pitiful jokes! The amount of ignorance in that room is absolutely stifling, I cannot stand that man’s lectures any longer.”

“So….stop going to his lectures. Problem solved.”

“I want to stop _others_ from drinking in that idiot’s conjecture as well, stop those who aren’t fully aware of his ignorance so he won’t indulge theirs.”

“Complain to the board, stop his lectures from even happening?”

“No,” Hermann sighed, seating himself on the edge of his bed with a resigned huff. “As much as they indulge my academic needs for their own gain, my complaints have, as of late, fallen on increasingly deaf ears. Unless it’s solving a problem of their own, they take my words with less than a grain of salt.”

“Well,” Newt chimed, his voice breaking slightly in the middle of the word. “You just gotta make your intentions a little more...prominent. Grand.”

Hermann’s eyes narrowed, watching Newt with guarded uncertainty.

“Just what exactly do you mean?”

“This...professor..” Newt took off his headphones, standing from his desk to stand in the center of the room. “You could uh...protest one of his talks. You were saying that he has a big one coming up, right?”

Hermann snorted, shaking his head.

“Ridiculous. I don’t want to make myself a public nuisance, let alone a private one like yourself.”

Newt ignored the comment. His mind was completely focused on other things.

“I don’t mean steal a speakerphone and rally at the gates, I mean something a little less personal...like a...like a sign, or something.”

“‘Or something’,” Hermann repeated, letting out a short breath from his nose. “As confident as I am in your ability to disrupt any and all order in many settings, I don’t think I take on your enthusiasm for the practice.”

“Yeah, well, that’s ‘cause you’ve got a stick up your ass at like, all hours of the day.”

“I do not-”

“No, that’s a universal constant, you can’t fight me on that. But listen for a second. Don’t you wanna fuck with this guy?”

“Listen to me, Newton,” Hermann snapped, leaning forward to point an accusatory finger at his roommate. “I will not besmirch my own credibility as a professional and outstanding student to fix his errors, no matter how grand. I won’t follow your idiotic schemes into the academic abyss of probation for your own need to _show off_.”

Newt let out a small disbelieving huff as Hermann stood, turning away to shrug off his jacket.

“I’m going to bed, lest these insane ideas somehow influence me the later it gets. Goodnight, Newton.”

Newt mumbled something like goodnight as he returned to his desk, absorbed in his own thoughts. He pushed aside his notebooks, pulling his laptop in closer to begin a different sort of research.

  


\--------

 

Hermann steadied himself against a stiff breeze as he stepped out of his living quarters, adjusting his collar and muttering against the wind as he started off for campus. Against his better judgement and pride he was going to the talk, idiot or not. Perhaps he could bring up the problem again during the discussion and actively work at fixing it, this time around. At least he wouldn’t be making a fool of himself, as Newt would want him to do. That man was fool enough for the both of them.

As he turned the corner approaching the main lecture hall, he noticed a crowd gathering at the entrance. It was larger than the average group of students waiting to get in, and most of them were looking up, some pointing at the building’s face. He frowned, hurrying his shuffle slightly to watch the whole building come into view, craning his neck to gather what all the commotion was about.

That’s when he saw it. Scrawled in large, black letters on what appeared to be a bed sheet were the words “listen here you silly BASTARD”, followed by the corrected form of the formula the professor was about to speak on. Hermann could hardly believe his eyes, letting out a soft, surprised chuckle as the makeshift banner fluttered in the cold morning breeze. A few moments later another commotion had started, everyone’s heads tilting back down to ground level to watch a student in a leather jacket being pulled away from the scene, protesting in a loud, high-pitched voice that Hermann knew too well.

“Du dumm Flegel**,” he snapped as he approached the officers, watching Newt’s struggles calm in response. He wanted to be angry, to be furious at what the idiot at done, but he wasn’t. Not in the least. He couldn’t stop a small smirk from appearing at the corner of his lips, prompting Newt to grin in return.

“What, not sophisticated enough? I thought I’d put it into terms he’d understand.”

Hermann tried not to laugh, instead shifting his attention to the ground as he walked alongside the guards leading them away from the lecture hall.

“How did you find the correct formula.”

“Oh, it was easy, once I did a little research and calculations on my own.” Hermann let out an incredulous snort, and Newt smiled. “...I might’ve taken a look at your notes to confirm my findings. Just to be sure.”

“I’ve told you over and over not to go through my things while I’m away or unconscious,” Hermann snapped, though the usual bite was long gone. Newt shrugged, still smiling as they approached the end of the block. As soon as Hermann stopped to watch them go Newt turned in the guards arms, struggling slightly against their attempts to keep him moving.

“Hey, tell me how he takes it! You gotta revel in the look on his face for me. You can own him now, dude!”

Hermann watched with a certain level of joy as Newt was hustled off, still fighting against his captors, most likely for fighting’s sake. He shook his head and turned to watch the crowd in front of the hall slowly disperse, an incredibly irate professor storming out of it, shoddily closed briefcase in hand. He simply smiled as the man strode by, leaning gently against his cane. Newt definitely had...eccentric ways of dealing with issues, but they certainly were effective. His gaze wandered back to the hall, watching a cleaning crew slowly dismantle the banner. Maybe he could ask for it, as a memento.

**Author's Note:**

> * Moron  
> ** You stupid lout


End file.
